coreutils "ln" created bad symbolic link when I believe it should have
failed , because the symbolic link being created already existed.
Created a directory "AA"
Created symbolic link "aa" to directory "./AA"
Created directory "BB"
Created symbolic link to "aa" to "./BB", without first deleting the
original symbolic link "aa".
Symbolic link creation of "aa" should fail on line 43 of test (ln -s
./BB aa), because symbolic link "aa" already exists.
No error was reported and it created a bad symbolic link, inside
directory "AA" as "BB" to "./BB" ( see line 53 of test),
Symbolic link "aa" to directory "AA" remained.
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ln --version
ln (GNU coreutils) 9.6
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Mike Parker and David MacKenzie.
-------------- test follows
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ls -lR
.:
total 0
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> mkdir AA
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ls -lR
.:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 6 Feb 27 16:13 AA
./AA:
total 0
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ln -s ./AA aa
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ls -lR
.:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 glenn glenn 4 Feb 27 16:13 aa -> ./AA
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 6 Feb 27 16:13 AA
./AA:
total 0
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> mkdir BB
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ls -lR
.:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 glenn glenn 4 Feb 27 16:13 aa -> ./AA
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 6 Feb 27 16:13 AA
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 6 Feb 27 16:14 BB
./AA:
total 0
./BB:
total 0
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> *ln -s ./BB aa*
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ> ls -lR
.:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 glenn glenn 4 Feb 27 16:13 aa -> ./AA
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 16 Feb 27 16:14 AA
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 6 Feb 27 16:14 BB
./AA:
total 0
*lrwxrwxrwx 1 glenn glenn 4 Feb 27 16:14 BB -> ./BB*
./BB:
total 0
glenn@cottage:~/ZZ>
Thanks
Glenn.
